On Dec. 9, 2014, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) announced that Debbie Yaver, Novozymes’ director of expression technology, genomics and bioinformatics, was the first recipient of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s Rosalind Franklin Award. Yaver’s expertise in genetic engineering of industrial filamentous fungi contributed to Novozymes’ leadership in developing enzymes for advanced biofuels.

Rosalind Franklin’s use of X-ray diffraction images led to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953. Her work was published alongside Francis Crick’s and James Watson’s model of the structure of DNA.